


A Bridge Over Troubled Water Part 3

by livvels1012



Series: A Bridge Over Troubled Water [3]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluffy, Hurt/Comfort, Maxvid shippers don't interact, MomGwen, dadvid, warning for child abuse mention, warning for child neglect mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-18 21:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20319706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livvels1012/pseuds/livvels1012
Summary: Follow up to Part 2. I highly recommend reading part 1 and 2! It'll get confusing real fast if you haven't.After a fun nature hike and camping in the woods, a happy time quickly ends when Max realizes he’s returned to camp and cannot find his beloved bear anywhere. It went with him on the hike and has not come back with him. Matters only become worse when he ventures into the Oregon wilderness to try to retrace his steps and find Mr. Honeynuts. Maybe his counselors will finally learn why he holds that teddy bear so near and dear to his heart.





	1. Chapter 1

“Max! Are you ready to go? We’re lining up to leave!”

“Hang on!” Max was just trying to cram his water bottle into the side of his pack, but it was too dense to fit. “Fucking stupid— come on!  _ Rrrrgh!” _

He stood up and gave his camping bag a good hard disciplinary kick and sent it flip flopping over the ground as Gwen stepped into his tent. “Having issues?”

“My bag is too small. It’s bullshit.”

“Let me look.” He watched her kneel down and unpack it, then begin completely rearranging it. “Dude, you just shoved everything in here?”

“Is there another way packing works?”

“ Oh my god, you’re gonna die in the woods…”

“Hey!”

But once Gwen got her hands on it, she easily put it together without trouble and peeked inside one more time to make sure he had everything. Spare hoodie and shirt, the gear they had given each camper, sleeping bag strapped to the front and his quilt rolled up inside. “You forgot something.”

“No, I didn’t?”

He watched his counselor look under his bed and then pull out a familiar friend, giving it a wiggle. “Your mighty grizzly bear.”

“...I didn’t forget him,” Max muttered, snatching Mr. Honeynuts from her and holding him protectively from the  _ evil witch  _ in front of him. He thumbed the spot where one of his button eyes was missing; he hadn’t found a suitable replacement yet.  _ Sorry, buddy _ . “I didn’t want someone to see him.”

“Don’t you need it to sleep?”

Max didn’t answer her but Gwen held his open backpack out to him. “Come on, we’re gonna be late. Now or never, is the bear coming or not?”

In a moment of pressure, he instinctively put the bear in the pack and zipped it shut. In the end, he really didn’t want to part from it. Gwen helped him put his pack on his shoulders and he followed her out into the bright morning. 

Everyone else was ready to go, and Nikki bounced around maniacally pulling on David’s arms and clothes and yelling, “Can we go?! Can we go?! I’m ready! Set me loose! Come ON! TALLY HO!” while their counselor just patiently watched the sky, keeping an eye on the weather. It looked pretty fair to Max. Sunny sky, a fair amount of wind that would help with the heat. He walked over to the front and waited for the right moment, before he grabbed Nikki by the back of her overalls. She reminded him of a puppy just digging her feet in as she tried to pull forward on the leash with all her might and Max had to lean back with all his weight just to look like she  _ totally  _ wasn’t stronger than him. “Nikki, chill the fuck out. The forest will still be there whenever we leave.” he said.

  
  
“Okay, kids! Make sure you have your buddy! We’re staying on the trail together, but just in case you get separated from the group, stay with your buddy. If you do get separated, stay where you are and we’ll find you, and make sure to drink water and let us know if you need to rest. Everyone follow Gwen! ” David called, and everyone moved to set out.   


  
Gwen took point and David waited until he was at the back before moving, Max just in front of him and Nikki and Neil a little ways up. He had never been down this trail before, but it lead from the north of camp towards the mountains. Max had secretly always wanted to check them out. He had heard about caves and old mines and settlements by pilgrims from a long ass time ago that were abandoned for whatever reason. When he got bored, he had started to read up on Sleep Peak history and it was a  _ little  _ interesting. He had an urge to ask David about it, but he didn’t want to open something he couldn’t put the lid back on.   


He trailed behind since everyone was so  _ loud _ , chatting and whooping and being generally grating. Max just wanted to quietly study his surroundings, now that they were completely engulfed by trees. Only twenty minutes in and they were deep into the forest preserve. His senses filled with the smell of pines, the satisfying snap of twigs and softness of moss and dirt under his shoes, the dapples of sunlight that speckled everything. It was pretty in a way he had never seen in his life, and it was  _ endless _ .    
  
“Oh, Max! Before I forget, I got something for you.”   
  
Max looked away from where he had spotted some kind of bird high up in a tree he didn’t recognize and back at David, who had shrugged off one backpack strap so he could open it and pull something out. “I have a theory that you liked Survival Camp. Maybe I’m wrong, but here you go anyway.”   


He was just staring at David blankly. He had no idea what to make of being given a gift. His birthday was never celebrated and they didn’t practice Christmas or any regular holidays in his house. His mom used to tell him stories about what her family celebrated back home, like Diwali or Holi, but his father wouldn’t allow any of it. Only now that Max saw it was different in other houses did he notice how strange and inconsistent it was. His father was  _ fiercely  _ religious, but celebrated no holidays. He prayed all the time, but mentioned no god. He had rigid rules and beliefs, that Max and his mother had to follow, but Max was never allowed to have whatever faith his father followed explained to him. 

  
  
Point was, no presents.  _ Ever _ . 

  
  
David waited until Max realized what he wanted and he awkwardly held out his hands so his counselor could drop a small object into them. It looked like a blue woven circle-- “Did you make me a fucking friendship bracelet?!” Max hissed,  _ offended _ .    
  
“Um, well, I also have one but that’s not what it is. See? It has a compass and a fish hook-- it’s not very sharp but it will work. It’s a paracord bracelet, Max. It’s really useful! The inner cords can be used as sutures, the cord itself is  _ super  _ strong and can hold a ton of weight, it can be a fishing line, or you can shred it up for fire tinder, all kinds of stuff! And there’s five hundred feet of it in this little bracelet.”   
  


“Oh.” Max didn’t know what to say. It was genuinely fucking thoughtful and he did like it. It was cool and useful and he didn’t even realize he would want something like this until he had it. He just kept turning it over in his fingers, trying to find a way to react like a normal kid would but he was coming up empty. 

  
He glanced up at David, whose happy smile faded to concern. “What’s wrong? You don’t like it? It’s okay if you don’t, I won’t be mad.”

  
“Fuck, no, that’s not it! I’m just-- I’m not...I don’t know what to say when it comes to this shit. I--” he took a deep breath and grimaced. He could feel his ears getting hot, and was sure his face was red with embarrassment. _Just say thank you, asshole_. He unclipped the buckle and began trying to get it around his wrist, but he was having trouble doing it with one hand. The longer it took, the more humiliated Max felt and his vision blurred and his hands started to shake._ Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. What did Gwen say?_   
  


Then, a set of pale fingers took over and simply connected the two ends of the buckle for him with a click. It fit snugly, but Max got the notion that in case it ever got caught on something, it was meant not to break. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, counting just like Gwen taught him. Slowly through the nose, hold for two seconds, then out through the mouth. And it helped. He opened his eyes again, starting down the path, focused on catching up with the group before anyone noticed. 

“Thank you,” he mumbled, barely audible. Max felt a warm hand on his head a moment later for a nanosecond and it was gone. He was relieved David just let the conversation end there. He kept rotating the bracelet around his wrist before he finally looked up at him and asked, “Is it okay if I show it to Neil and Nikki?”

  
“Of course! I bet they’ll think it’s cool.”

Max spent the rest of the trek with his friends. With the bracelet to break the ice, it was easy to fall back into their natural banter again. The last few days, they had been able to tell something was  _ off  _ about Max and he had been more or less dodgy with questions. He even went as far as to avoid them a little, despite their concern and offers to try to cheer him up, which served to make him angry or feel guilty. 

  
But Nikki was fascinated by it and Neil blathered on about compasses and magnetism until Max thought his eyes would glaze over with boredom and then it felt like nothing had changed. They joked and laughed, they threw pine cones at Space Kid for the very satisfying  _ ding!  _ off of his helmet. It was a four hour hike, and they did stop for lunch halfway through, but it was a lot harder than Max thought it would be. He felt himself getting winded and he was having trouble keeping up without Nikki encouraging him and helping him over the harder inclines. He knew he was small for his age, but this was just depressing.    
  
At long last, they reached their destination. It was marked off with a few posts and a sign dictating regulations for using the camping ground. It was a naturally formed clearing in the trees on a flat patch of land. There were rock formations all over for campfires and Max could see the areas where people likely pitched their tents most, since there was less greenery growing on them.    
  
They were all given a chance to pick out their spots and rest, and Max chose the second closest one to the forest edge. He wanted the closest, but he gave it up for Nikki. The counselors showed them how to set up their tents, rolled out their sleeping bags and dropped their packs on them.    
  
It was a little like school, being tested on what they had learned or so Max remembered vaguely. He had bounced around private schools until the third grade before he stopped going altogether. They were tested on how to prepare their fire pit (David and Gwen quadruple checked them) and how to properly set up their fires.  _ Teepee to start it, cabin to keep it going _ . Max carefully stacked up the kindling and used the newspaper he was given to bunch it up and stuff it inside the middle. He had an easy time striking his magnesium lighter to get it going and crouched down to blow on the flame to feed it. Before anyone else, he had his going and he couldn’t help but grin proudly.    
  
They had hot dogs to roast over them and canned beans in travel pots, which was far from the worst meal Max had ever had. But then Gwen surprised them by breaking out the marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate bars.   
  
They all gathered around the big bonfire as David set up their s’mores assembly line and settled in to roast their marshmallows as the sky began to darken and become tinged scarlet on the horizon. Max sat against the log Gwen and David claimed, sticking his marshmallow straight into the flames. The proper way to cook it was to torch it, blow it out and enjoy.    
  
There was a mixture of reactions when David pulled out his guitar and Max slumped further down with a loud groan and roll of his eyes. They played Name That Tune, which wasn't _unbearable_, and David taught them a bunch of call and response songs, which Max didn’t participate in, but over all?   
  
Max had  _ fun _ .    
  
In this place deep in the forest so far away from the city he had barely had time to experience and the prison he had to call home, with David strumming his guitar and Gwen begrudgingly singing along with him and the campers with a faint smile, he didn’t feel like any of the demons of his past could touch him. He felt  _ free _ . He didn’t think about how hard the last three weeks had been, he didn’t worry about going to sleep and he didn’t devolve into negative thoughts about what would happen when summer ended. He just stayed in the moment.   
  
The other campers slowly petered out and retreated to their tents for bed, but Max had comfortably zoned out while watching the flames. They were so calming, the crackle of the birch wood and flare of the embers in the center. But his favorite part was watching the sparks float up into the dark sky. He slouched with his hands in his pockets, eyes half closed, starting to focus on the stars. 

  
David slid off the log to sit beside him, guitar still on his lap. It was down to just him and Gwen, and Space Kid and Nikki but they were in s’more comas. “You’re certainly smiling a lot, Max.”

  
  
“Maybe it’s because I’ve finally cracked,” he murmured, feeling drowsy.    
  
“Oh, I’m  _ sure  _ that’s it,” Gwen said sarcastically.    
  
“Fuck off,” he elbowed her and she elbowed him back

  
David set his guitar aside and all three of them laid with their heads against the log, looking up at the stars. Max had never seen so much blue and silver, but then David’s hand came into frame, pointing a few pinpricks of light out in particular. “That’s Ursa Major.”

  
  
“Uh...bless you?”

  
  
David chuckled, “It’s a constellation, Max. See, there’s the big dipper inside of it and the top of the handle, the brightest star? That’s her tail. It’s the north star. If you ever need to find north at night time, find Ursa Major, the mama bear.”

  
  
Max followed his hand until he saw the bright star he was referring to. Now that he was studying it, he remembered seeing it before. It  _ was  _ pretty easy to find. “...Is there a baby bear?”

  
  
“Ursa Minor,” Gwen chimed in, leaning over to point as well. “Do you know their story? All the constellations have the story.”

  
  
He shook his head sleepily but tapped Gwen’s hand to signal her to tell it to him. 

  
  
She and David took turns explaining it, their collective narration weaving a bittersweet tale of a god called Zeus who was unfaithful. When his wife tried to catch him with his girlfriend, he panicked and turned her into a bear and had to return home with his wife Hera before he could turn her back. 

  
  
Her son, a good hunter, saw the bear and shot it in the heart, not knowing it wasn’t really a bear. When she died, she turned back to her human self. Zeus returned, scared that Hera would hear his crying over what he had done to his mother. He turned her into a bear again and then into stars, and then he turned the son to a bear as well, turned towards his mother in the sky so they would always be together and he could watch over her.

  
  
“Sounds like a lot of trouble that could’ve been avoided if Zeus just kept it in his pants,” Max muttered, his eyes drifting shut.

  
  
“Kid, you just broke Greek Mythology down to its bare essentials.” Gwen said. 

  
  
“What others--” he yawned, “Are there?”

  
“I think it’s time for you to crash, buddy.” David said softly, starting to sit up. 

  
  
“One more,” he argued.    
  
“...Just one, and that’s it, then you have to go to bed.”

  
  
“Pushover,” Gwen said. 

  
  
“It’s educational! Okay, okay, let me see...Right there. Orion’s belt.”

  
Max rolled over and curled up, and he didn’t mind David putting a hand on his head as he did. When no one else (exempting Gwen) was around, he was okay with the physical affection. It didn’t bother him now that he was used to it. David’s fingers combed gently through his messy hair, making a futile effort to untangle it. 

  
  
While Gwen went and picked up the two other sleeping campers and put them to bed, David told him one last story in a soft voice. He said there were many different versions of the story,  _ “But I’ll tell you the one my mom told me. _

__   
_ There was a hunter consumed by pride. He believed he was the greatest of them all, and he sought to prove it by slaughtering all of Earth’s creatures. He had no love or respect for the sanctity of life. All he cared for was feeding his ego; his name was Orion. _ __   
__   
_ And then there was Diana. The goddess of the moon and hunt, the patron protector of newborn children and animals, who watched over every living thing at its most vulnerable, the master archer. She was horrified by his action. He had broken the basic laws of nature. Do not take life in vain. Respect your quarry and honor them for giving their life so that you may survive.  _ __   
__   
_ She visited him as a mortal and scolded him. She told him he had one chance to stop his crusade before the wrath of nature destroyed him. Orion scorned her and insulted her for being a simple woman trying to tell a man his place.  _ __   
__   
_ Diana sent a massive scorpion to show Orion how it felt to be the prey. The scorpion was ferocious and relentless and every blow the hunter dealt to it only served to spur it on with more resolve than before. It never tired and in the end, Orion fell to its poisonous sting.  _ __   
_   
_ __ Over time, the animals returned to make his old hunting grounds their home and the earth forgot him. Somewhere on the other side of the sky, the Scorpion is still there.”

__   
__   
Max peeked open an eye to look at it, the stars more defined now that the fire had burned down quite a bit. “Your mom was a good storyteller,” he murmured.  __   
__   
“She was good at playing the guitar, too. When is your birthday, Max? Maybe we can find your Zodiac sign.”   
  
He was too tired and comfortable to lie or make shit up. “I dunno. Sometime in fall, I think…”   
  
He distantly heard David’s voice, the end of it upturned in tone that probably meant it was a question but he was almost asleep. He dreamed he was floating, moving up like a spark into the sky, a peculiar but not frightening sensation.   
  
Weirdly enough, he woke up tucked into his sleeping bag and couldn’t remember getting up and going there himself. __   
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
All he wanted was Max to be happy for a little while, and it took the weight of the world off of David’s shoulders to see that for a day. It broke his heart when Max clearly didn’t know how to handle being given a present and all over again when the child didn’t seem to know his birthday. As if it had never been granted importance. 

  
  
“If it’s November, you could be a Scorpio. That would suit you perfect, Max--” he said and looked down to see Max had his eyes closed and was breathing in soft, puffy little snores. “Max?” he asked again, brushing his hair out of his face. 

  
  
He looked up and greeted Gwen with a silent smile and gestured for her to be quiet as she set down on the log beside them. “He’s almost cute,” she whispered with a teasing smirk. “You would never know what a devious little twerp he is. Is he out?”

  
  
“Like a light.”

  
  
“Let’s not wake him up. Here, I’ll get his shoes, you can carry him. Gimme a second first, though."  
  
  
David watched Gwen sit down and quickly shuffle until she was laying next to Max like before, with him between them and then she took out her phone. "Okay, smile."  
  
  
"Don't you think Max'll be upset?"  
  
  
"He had a good day, he's going to have something to remember it."  
  
  
David willingly smiled, this one softer and smaller but genuine nonetheless. There was nothing like being tuckered out after an exciting day, and he bet Max could count on one hand how many of those he had ever had. Gwen snapped the picture and sat up, putting her phone away so she could start undoing Max's shoe laces. "...David, these are, like...a size and half too small. Look, the toe is almost worn through. They gotta be ancient."  
  
"Maybe we can find him a pair in the lost and found?" David very carefully picked him up under the arms and settled him on his hip with ease. Max didn’t stir a bit. He just slept loosely in his arms, cheek against his counselor’s shoulder, light as a feather. Too light.  
  
"Uhh...maybe. It's a tomorrow problem, just get him to bed."  
  
David had gone to school to be an elementary teacher. He spent years learning about kids needs and how to meet them and part of his training was recognizing where they were at health wise. Max really was only sixty pounds, give or take, way below where a ten year old boy  _ should  _ weigh.   
  
He tried not to dwell on it. This was a good night, it would stay that way. He carefully tucked Max into his sleeping bag and swaddled the quilt around him; he loved that Max was so attached to it. Anything that would comfort him against his nightmares. He also made sure to take his bear from his backpack and tuck it against Max’s cheek. “Sweet dreams, kiddo.”   
  
Gwen was just kicking dirt over the last of the embers when David got back and retrieved his guitar off the ground. “Over all, I consider that a success. Nobody burned the forest down, we didn’t lose anyone and we ate way too much sugar.”    


  
“Hmmm,” was all David said, still lost in thought as he slung his guitar strap onto his shoulder.    
  
“Hey. Play me a song.”   
  
“What?”   
  
“Play. Me. A. Song. Dummy.” Gwen tugged him by the arm as she sat down again, trying to get him to join her. Confused, he did and positioned it on her lap. “A-alright? What song?”   
  
“One that makes you happy.”   
  


* * *

  
  
  


She would never, ever tell it to Max’s face but seeing him all snuggled up and fast asleep with a content look on his face next to David was probably the cutest fucking thing she had seen all summer. If only it could always be that way. She peeked at the picture of him sheltered between his two counselors, and she swear she could see he was smiling a tiny bit in his sleep. It was the most content she had ever seen Max since she had met him.    
  
But after David tucked him in to sleep, she could see when he returned that her friend wasn't feeling the same. They both worried about Max, and were constantly vigilant for anything useful for his case. They were planning to take action, but when and how they could be involved was still up in the air. David was most concerned about Max’s ability to handle it when the time came, and she was on the same page.   
  
  
They needed to just not think about it for one night. She waited patiently, watching him mull over what to play as he fidgeted his hand along the fret of his guitar and finally seemed to settle on something.   
  
It was a gentle, uplifting melody. His long fingers deftly picked at the strings and began to sing quietly. When he just sang naturally, like he was alone, he had a beautiful and calming voice. She could see him being a music teacher so easily. Gwen knew he had applied to positions at the local schools, but he hadn’t heard anything back from them yet.  _ The kids would adore him. How could they not? _

__   
__   
**“This is a story that began long, long ago** **  
** **I was a young oak tree in dark Missouri soil** **  
** **And like all other saplings, I had dreams** **  
** **Of growing strong and tall.** **  
** **  
** **Then one day a rebel with a bullet in his chest** **  
** **Hung his rifle on my limbs and laid to rest** **  
** **And there beside me as the blood soaked to my roots** **  
** **The soldier sang a song of grace...** ”   


  
He hummed the melody for a little bit and she saw a small smile on his lips. Even in the dim light of what was left of the fire, she could see the copper glint in his hair and the warmth he just seemed to emanate on his own.  _ There’s my guy _ .    
  
He sang, they both sang, they talked or they just watched the embers die together. And once they had, the only sound was quiet guitar strings and crickets and rustling trees. “I finally see why you love it out here so much,” she sighed, stretching her arms over her head.   
  
David slung his guitar back onto his shoulder and stood up, offering her his hand to help her to her feet, which she accepted. “Really?”   
  
“Yeah. There’s something for everyone, even Max and even me.”   
  
They walked side by side to their tent. They were used to sharing a living space, they didn’t even think to pack separately. But their excuse was that they could only carry so many supplies. “What’s out here for you, Gwen?”   
  
“Let me think about that, Dave. I’ll get back to you.”   
  
They said their good nights and laid down side by side with their packs and a guitar between them, unaware of the stars becoming blotted out by storm clouds throughout the night.


	2. Chapter 2

Max didn’t startle awake than he usually did. While he was pulled from sleep involuntarily, the knee-jerk reaction of panic and confusion was absent. He just opened his eyes blearily to the low, distant rumble that gently shook his tent and noticed the air was a bit cooler than the night before but he wasn’t cold. He was snuggled up in his puffy sleeping bag, and under that he had the quilt as an extra layer to keep the warmth in. 

  
  
He didn’t remember falling asleep like this, though. And his shoes were placed neatly by his stuff.  _ Fucking weird _ . Max reluctantly sat up and noticed right away his clothes had that stale campfire smoke smell soaked into them, and it brought back comforting memories from the night before. Wind buffeted the outside of his tent and he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, grumbling as he began to worm his way out of the sleeping bag and grabbed his shoes. Outside, he could hear the voices of everyone else as Gwen and David went around waking them. 

  
  
When Max stepped outside, he was surprised by how dark the sky looked. It was completely  _ covered  _ in clouds, and it was way windier than it had been the day before. Gwen and David were helping to quickly break down tents and Max jumped as there was another roll of thunder, closer. 

  
  
Max decided he didn’t want to get caught out here in a thunderstorm either and by the counselors fervent efforts to get moving, he had better do the same. He wasn’t even sure where to start, but he decided to pull the stakes first that kept it rooted in place. 

Big mistake.

  
  
Immediately, it started to shift and careen over, picked up by the wind like a malformed beach ball. “Shit!”

  
He made a mad dash to grab it before it ended up out of control and struggled to get it back onto its base until Gwen came over and intervened him. “You could’ve asked for help.”

  
  
“You could have checked the weather.”

  
  
“We did. It was supposed to pass us, it still  _ might  _ but we’re gonna get back to camp just in case. Don’t want to do paperwork for a kid getting struck by lightning. Come on, get your stuff, I’ll break this down.”

  
  
It was already starting to drizzle as Max crammed his blankets and lastly his bear into his pack. It only zipped halfway shut but he slung it onto his shoulders and ran to catch up with the rest of the group as they were all being waved onto the trail. “Everybody watch your step! The path is going to get slippery!” David shouted before they set off. It was quicker and quieter than the original hike, but Max this time took up the front with David, who was keeping a watchful eye on the ridge that ran up the east side of the trail. “Hey, kiddo. Did you sleep okay?” he asked after a bit, smiling down at Max. 

  
  
He didn’t even get irritated with David  _ relentlessly  _ checking on him anymore. “I didn’t have any nightmares,” he admitted, fiddling with his new bracelet. He had written about the nightmares and related problems already, and to his surprise, now that he thought back on it? It was a lot easier to say it out loud. It had helped to put his thoughts in order so they didn’t just run away into chaos. “I think maybe the fire and stuff helped. Like, when it’s  _ totally  _ quiet, it’s worse. But if I can hear people or rain or something, it’s better. It’s easier to remember where I am.”

  
  
“Don’t forget, if you  _ do  _ have any--”

  
  
“Come wake you. I  _ know _ . I’m seriously doing better, David. You don’t have to worry so much.”

  
  
“Well, I’m going to, so...there.”

  
  
They were quiet for a bit, the thunder gradually growing closer and more frequent. It was still only drizzling, but it occasionally rained a little harder. Max pulled his hood up to keep his ears from getting cold. The ground started to become wet and slick along the better worn parts of the path and it started to slope down a little. He remembered this part; a particularly steep trek that had been the hardest apex of the hike. Nothing dangerous, but Nikki had to drag him up by the arm over the surface roots, as he grumbled and groaned and complained that the whole thing was inhumane.

  
  
He figured it would be easier going downhill, but he was wrong. He realized too late that he should have paced himself, and only did when his foot slid out from under him and he realized he was just walking down one big mudslide. He was panicking for something to grab onto to stop his descent when he felt a tug on his hood. 

  
  
“I said watch your step!” David exclaimed, picking him right up and setting him back on his feet. All down the back of his hoodie and side of his pants, there was just mud. It was cold and sticky and  **uncomfortable** . “Are you hurt?”

  
  
“I. Hate. This. Fucking. Forest.” Max snarled, kicking the ground so hard he nearly went over again but David grabbed his arm to stop it. His counselor helped him the rest of the way down the slope, despite him spitting and hissing all manner of obscene words about the forest. It was a miracle Diana or some other vengeful entity of nature didn’t come to slap him with a bar of soap square in the mouth. 

  
  
He had never been so fucking relieved to see Camp Cambell when they finally arrived, and not a moment too soon. About five minutes before it started absolutely pouring (Gwen had to lead Spacekid by the hand; his helmet was not equipped with wipers) and a bright flash of lightning ripped across the sky. 

  
  
Their counselors waved them to their respective homes away from home, Gwen lecturing the whole way. “Okay, kids, put on dry clothes and stay inside! We’ll bring lunches to your tents!”

  
  
Max stomped off to his own tent and swapped his muddy clothes for a clean set, and kicked the old ones under his bed. He hoped they weren’t ruined; he only had so many articles of clothing he had been able to pack in his tiny duffel bag. Afterwards, he fell face first onto his bed with a miserable huff and decided he was going to take a nap.    
  


* * *

  
  
For the rest of the day, it stormed. Most summer storms that hit Sleepy Peak were short and sweet, but this one was in it for the long haul. The counselors went around bringing them their food and announced they were all camping in the mess hall since it was likely better than their tents when it was coming down in buckets. They were all supposed to bring their sleeping bags to dinner and settle in for a movie night on the projector screen David rigged up with a bed sheet. 

  
  
The last thing he really wanted was to be stuck in a crowded space with every one of these fruitloops he saw every day already, but he knew Gwen would drag him into the Mess Hall if she had to. When it was time to go, he hauled himself upright and began searching for his pack to retrieve his sleeping bag for the night. But when he unzipped it the rest of the way, his heart jumped into his throat. 

  
  
_ Where is he? _

Max turned his backpack upside down and dumped everything inside of it out. Sleeping bag, extra hoodie, quilt, water bottle, magnesium lighter, binoculars...No Mr. Honeynuts.

  
  
He stood up and could already feel his chest being pressed in an invisible vice, squeezing the air out of his lungs and forcing him to gulp desperately to get it back. He tried to remember Gwen’s voice, coaching him to  _ breathe  _ but it was like he had cotton balls in his ears. He thought maybe he would be under the bed, but he wasn’t. Not stuck between the covers, not in any corner of the tent, he even tore apart Neil’s side looking for him (much to Neil’s horror and confusion). “Max, what the hell?!”

  
  
“Have you seen him?”

  
  
“Who?”

  
  
“Mister-- my bear! My  _ fucking  _ bear! Don’t you laugh about this, Neil!”

  
  
Oddly enough, Neil didn’t laugh as he backed away and tried to steer clear of a rampaging Max. “Hey, man, I haven’t seen it--”

  
  
“Him!”

  
  
“ _ Him _ anywhere! Maybe you dropped him outside around camp?”

  
  
“No, he’s gotta be in here, just help me look.”

  
  
“Max--”

  
  
“Help me look!” He didn’t mean to shout at his friend and by how Neil was looking at him (like he had three heads), he obviously was a little less than composed. But regardless, Neil actually stopped whatever he was doing to help. He calmly helped Max turn every stone for Mr. Honeynuts. But they didn’t find him.

  
  
When they were sure he wasn’t in the tent, Max just sat down in the middle and put his head in his hands. Neil lingered close by anxiously, then awkwardly patted his shoulder. “Let’s get Nikki to help look around camp. Don’t get upset, dude, it’s just a toy…”

  
  
“Fuck you, Neil.” he whispered, without an ounce of aggression in it. It was pure reflex. “Just leave me alone.”

  
  
“...I’m gonna go to dinner. We’ll save you a spot, okay?”

  
  
Once Neil had left, Max looked around, hoping to suddenly spot a friendly one-button-eyed face in a shadowy corner he had missed. The same one that had always comforted him before he could even remember, when he was alone, when he was hurt, when he was sick.  **Always.**

  
  
But when Max still couldn’t find that face, he felt like the sky could fall down and it still couldn’t possibly make things worse. He slowly laid down on his side, on the tent floor and curled up tightly. Tiny barely audible sobs started to crawl their way up through his throat and he pulled his hood up, stretching it to cover his face. 

  
  
“S’all my fault,” he mumbled to no one. “I lost him. It’s all my fault, I lost him…”

  
  
_ I lost him _ .    
  


* * *

  
“David,” Gwen nudged his arm gently as she sat down next to him with their dinner. They had moved the tables so the kids could set up in the center of the room, and had put on The Incredibles for them, which was thankfully keeping them pretty occupied. “We’re missing one.”

  
  
David looked up from his mac and cheese (one of the safest options) and scanned the room, instantly taking mental role call. It only took a second to notice one black-moppy-haired head was absent, and he checked the corners and tables to make sure he wasn’t just ostracizing himself. “Maybe he’s gone to the bathroom. Did you see him come in earlier?”

  
  
“I haven’t seen him since lunch. Do you want me to go check his tent?”

  
  
“No, I’ve got it. Maybe he’s just not feeling well.” David stood up from his seat, “You’re okay alone with them?”

  
  
“I’m offended you doubt me.”

  
  
“Thanks, Gwen.”

  
  
David made sure to make a plate before he left the mess hall, carefully shielding it from the rain as he got to Max’s tent as quickly as he could. He stopped for a moment, “Max! It’s David, are you in there?”

  
  
There was no response and he knocked on the pole that held up the roof, since there was no door to knock on. “Max?”

  
  
“I-I’m here,” he got a stammered, quiet reply. 

  
  
He did not like the sound of that one little bit. David ducked into the tent to find a very distressing sight. Max was just sitting on the floor with his hood up and head down on his knees as he wrapped his arms around his shins. He could hear him sniffling and his shaky breaths as he tried to be quiet. But David could see he was crying, and had been for quite some time, alone. He set down the dinner on Neil’s experiment table and carefully sat down next to his camper, who just shuffled around to turn his back on him. 

  
  
“Do you want me to get Gwen?” he asked, keeping his voice soft. “If it’s another anxiety attack…”

  
  
Max was already shaking his head no and David became silent for a little while, gradually moving closer until he could put his arm around Max. “Yes or no questions?” he suggested.

  
  
Max never gave him a verbal answer, just simple nods or a shake of his head. 

  
  
“Are you hurt?”  _ No. _

__   
  
“Was it the thunderstorm?”  __ No.

__   
  
“Do you feel sick at all?”  __ No.

__   
  
“Can you write down what’s wrong for me?”  __ Yes .

He followed Max’s pointed hand until he found his letters, all sealed under his bed and he began rifling through them to find the fresh paper but then the boy finally spoke up. “I already wrote it. It’s-- it’s this one.” And he crawled over to pick out one of the letters. None of them were labeled with words, but Max had marked them with a color or some kind of doodle so he could tell them apart without sacrificing their contents. 

  
  
“Are you sure you want me to open it?” David asked, as Max offered it to him. 

  
  
“Just fucking take it.”

  
  
He sat on Max’s bed to open it and his camper climbed up next to him. Max grabbed his pillow and hugged it on his lap, looking extremely disconcerted as he did. David tore open the top and pulled the folded paper out. To start, there was a carefully done drawing in pencil that took up the upper section of the paper. He recognized it immediately as a rough depiction of his teddy bear. And underneath, written in his short lopsided handwriting, were the following words. 

  
  
  
_ This is Mr. Honeynuts. Mommy only gave him to me so I would be quiet but I don’t care. He’s my best friend in the world. He used to be my only friend, but now I have Neil and Nikki too. They’re pretty great. Nikki is nuts and I don’t know if people get rabies shots but it might be a good idea in her case. Neil is okay. I think he gets me a little better than most. He’s tougher than people think.  _

_   
_ _   
_ _ As far as first friends go, I think I got lucky. But Mr. Honeynuts is still my  _ ** _best _ ** _ friend. I tell him everything I can’t say to people. He knows all the secrets. He knows about the rules and stuff, and he doesn’t care if I break them. He would never ever tell Father. He doesn’t think I’m a mistake. He always tries to take care of me and he’s always going to be there no matter what. I think I might ask Gwen and David if I can borrow some stuff from knitting camp. I feel bad he’s gone so long without one of his eyes and one of his ears is starting to fall off. I gotta look after him, too. _

__   
__   
“Max?” David looked over at his camper, who was completely hiding his face in his pillow now, his shoulders quaking. “Hey, hey. Don’t do that, you won’t be able to breathe. Sit up,” he set aside the paper and gently tugged at the pillow. “Can you sit up, please?”

  
  
It took a long time of coaxing before Max lifted his head and as soon as he took a deep breath, he let out the most broken sounding sob David had ever heard. “I lost him!”

  
  
David tried to hug him but Max jumped off the bed and chucked the pillow in his direction in response. “No! Don’t feel bad for me! It’s my fucking fault! I was supposed to take care of him! He only has me and I only have him and I just had to do  _ one fucking thing right and I couldn’t even _ \-- _ !” _

_   
_ David waited until he had finished wearing himself out, despite how badly he just wanted to sweep him up in a hug and hush him until he stopped saying those terrible things. Calling himself stupid and a fuck-up and worse. But he knew Max wasn’t going to be responsive to anything, not until he stopped on his own and he  _ was  _ only ten. He would run out of steam and once he finally did, David waited for a few seconds of silence before he gestured Max to come back over to him.

  
  
Exhausted and shivering, Max shuffled up to him and David took him by his hands. “Tomorrow morning, I’m going to go back on the trail and retrace our steps. Mr. Honeynuts probably just fell out of your backpack along the path or at the campsite. I’ll find him.”

  
  
He could see Max searching his face for any scrap of doubt or a lie, but he would find none. “I want to help look.”

  
  
“Max, it’s pretty dangerous out there after a big rain. There’s fallen trees, unstable ground, mudslides, slippery paths...I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  
  
“You mean you don’t want me in your way.”

  
  
“If I thought you would be safe, I would say yes and love having you along.”

  
  
“What if you don’t even find him?” Max asked, his voice hoarse from shouting and crying.

  
  
“We’ll think about that if it happens, but that is a very  _ small  _ if. Come on, your dinner is going to get cold. Hop up,” He tugged Max over and helped him climb up on his bed, putting a pillow behind his back. “I’m not hungry, David.” he protested forlornly. 

  
  
“You can’t skip dinner, here.” he picked up the tray and set it on Max’s lap. It reminded him of the hospital. Max mostly just picked at it, taking half bites with big spaces of time between them. David was pretty sure if he didn’t stay, Max would have left it untouched and he couldn’t afford to skip any meals. He mentally backtracked the forest trail in his mind but as it wandered, he began to think about the letter. The implications, of Max’s home life and his state of mind, were extremely sinister. Finally, he couldn’t bear it anymore. “Max?”

  
  
“What?”

  
  
“Can you tell me what you meant by ‘the rules’?”

  
  
Max dropped his fork and David knew it was a raw nerve that he had touched. “I’m--I’m not supposed to-- Parents have rules, it’s fucking normal.”

  
  
“Some of the time it isn’t, though.” He could see Max was visibly shaking, tremors wracking his hands and he couldn’t even eat with how intensely fear took over his whole body.  _ What have they done to make him like this _ ? But he could see Max was done talking for the night. If he pushed him any more, it hurt more than it would help. So he just focused on getting him to finish his dinner and cleaned up his tray for him. “Do you want to come to the Mess Hall? Maybe you shouldn’t be all alone. Or maybe the counselors…” he trailed off as Max just rolled over and faced away from him.

  
  
It was hardly seven o clock, but David wasn’t going to argue. He spent five minutes cleaning up what looked like the aftermath of Max looking for his lost friend, and picked up the blankets. Max just grabbed them from him when he tried to tuck him in like many times before, and David let him. If he wanted to be distant, he wouldn’t stop him. It helped Max feel safe and that’s what he needed most. “I’ll go first thing in the morning. I promise. It’s going to be okay, Max, you’ll see.”

He didn’t want to leave a silent, miserable, heart broken little boy alone but it was what Max wanted most. And it was still  _ Max.  _ If he wanted someone gone, he would make it happen. 

  
  
So David gave him until an hour before curfew before he grabbed a pudding cup from the Mess and doubled back to his tent to check on him. “Max, are you up? I thought you might want des--” he parted the tent flap and stopped. 

  
  
The bed was empty. 

  
  
His shoes and pack were gone.

  
  
_ Max  _ was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

It was laughably easy to slip out of camp if Max really put an effort into it. The moment he was sure David was far enough away, he threw off the blankets and began yanking his shoes on. There was always an issue getting them over his heel but if he just wiggled his feet at the right angle and yanked on the tab at the back of them, he could manage it. It was a little painful at that point, how crammed his toes had become but he had learned to ignore it. His clothes rarely fit in the last two years, give or take. His clothes, his haircut, his shoes and posture and how he spoke, it all used to be meticulously regulated by his father.

  
  
Because even if he was an unwanted child, he had to be a perfect one. But now that it seemed his father had decided to stop trying to present him how he wanted and would just hide him instead to save the trouble. Honestly, Max didn’t know which he preferred. They were both horrible ways to live. 

  
  
But one thing remained constant. 

  
  
No one cared about Max, that had been a fundamental fact for most of his life, no one except his bear. And he had grown out of the notion of a toy being alive a long time ago, but that didn’t change anything, did it? Mr. Honeynuts still comforted him when his mother abandoned him to whatever fate his father dictated for him. That teddy bear had been his only source of unconditional affection for as long as he could remember, even if it was all pretend. Even if he was just a thing, Max couldn’t handle the idea of losing him.   
  


He was going to find his friend. He wouldn’t let him be lost, forgotten, abandoned. He didn’t want to treat his friend like his parents treated him. 

  
  
In the dark, it was harder to pick out the trail than he would have liked to admit. He had taken everything with him he had for camping. Lighter, the travel pot, a water bottle, and so on. He was pretty sure he was on the right one, exiting the same side of camp they had the day before. 

  
  
It was still absolutely pouring rain and lightning flashed over head every few seconds, which helped him stay on the path until he felt far enough away to turn on his flashlight on his phone. He would have tried to grab one from the supply storage but Quartermaster had been lurking about. He might not have cared what Max was up to, but there was no predicting that freak.

  
  
He was already soaked through, since his clothes had no water resistance but at least his backpack kept his things dry. Max moved slowly along the path, carefully inspecting it for any sign of Mr. Honeynuts. He must have fallen out of his backpack on the way back. He kept kicking himself for being so careless. He should have stopped for a second and let Gwen repack it for him, or just been fucking responsible and paid attention to what he was doing. 

  
  
The temperature hadn’t dropped much, considering it was still the middle of summer, but with the cool rain and wind, Max was starting to shiver. It was like nature itself was trying to turn him around and send him back the way he came, but he pressed on. His feet were soaked and aching. His heart was pumping loud in his ears and lungs straining with the climb. He checked his phone, and stopped when he realized he had only been marching for a half hour.

  
  
Alone, with no one else to help fill the silence and distract him from the passage of time, the journey suddenly felt that much longer. It was four hours to get to the site, four hours to get back. It would be sunrise by the time he got back to Camp Campbell, and Gwen would be about ready to tear him limb from limb. 

  
  
“Or I’ll get lucky and find him in five minutes. Five minutes. Just five more,” he said to himself breathlessly. His feet kept sinking into the trail now, which was covered in about an inch of much and had tiny little rivers flowing down it. 

  
  
_ Five more. Just five more. _

  
  
He told himself that at the end of every five minute cycle and it got him through another hour, until he got to the big slope. Max stopped and leaned against the ridge wall to catch his breath, letting out a little cough. “Okay. Okay, I got this. I fucking got this.” 

  
  
He did not have this. 

Max only got about four feet up before his foot sank into the mud and he slid the rest of the way back down, dropping his phone in the process. He managed to rescue it, but at that point his hands were filthy and so was the phone. Max stood at the bottom for a long time, contemplating what he could do. If he had both hands, maybe he could climb better. And once he got to the top, he could just slide down the other side, right?

  
  
It was so easy on a dry day. At most, it required a little cardio. But now, it was like a boot camp obstacle. Max took one last look at it with his flashlight, trying to commit it to memory. He knew he was stalling, but the slope had a steep downward hill on one side into the forest below and a ridge wall on the other. If he slipped and went over, it wasn’t certain death but it would be a long, miserable walk all the way back to the beginning of the trail or a near impossible climb back up. 

  
  
It was now or never. Curfew was in just twenty minutes, and that meant the counselors would be checking everyone was safe in their beds. They would know he was gone, if they hadn’t already. Max secured his phone in his backpack and made sure to tighten the strap across his chest and scooted as close to the ridge wall as he could. There was some lightning to help him keep track of where he was going but it was infrequent at best. The rest of the time, it was almost total darkness.

  
  
Between clawing his way up with his hands in the dirt and finding purchase on the stone wall, Max felt like he was making progress. He only slipped twice and with both hands, he was able to catch himself before he lost too much ground. Hand over hand, he made his way up until something poked him in the face. “Ow, fuck!”

  
  
He rubbed his cheek, feeling lucky whatever it was didn’t get him in the eye. He gingerly felt out with his hands to find what it was, feeling over bark and branches and some leaves. 

  
  
He was at the top now, so he took out his phone again to get a look at the obstacle.

  
  
“Holy shit.”

  
  
It was one of the bigger evergreen trees that grew high up on the ridge, but as he followed the path of broken saplings and gouge up earth where he saw the huge, splintered trunk, blackened at the jagged edges. It must have been struck by lightning, and slid downhill, where the rest of the tree laid diagonally across the trail. The top of it hung over the side, and the middle of the tree was what Max had walked into.

  
  
He only spent a few moments marveling at how astonishing this feat of nature was before he realized the problem. Going up and down the length of it, it completely blocked his way. The trunk was too tall for him to climb by the ridge wall, and it was longer than the trail was wide. He followed along it and gingerly sat down on the trail, letting his weight slid him down but using his heel to slow his descent by digging it into the mud. And then he met tree branches. 

  
  
“Nikki climbs these all the time, how fucking hard can it be?” he muttered, shining the light through them. Towards the lower part and middle, the branches seemed too close together and also burnt. He wouldn’t fit, and they would likely break. So he inched along towards the edge of the slope where the top branches looked more promising.

  
  
It looked a lot easier when Nikki did it. 

  
  
He needed light to see what he was doing, making it even harder with one hand. He started with awkwardly clambering up between two branches to get onto the trunk in the first place. He just needed to climb along it for a bit to an opening he had spotted and then over, and he would be back on track. 

  
  
But he got about two feet towards his destination before he heart a gut wrenching creaking sound and felt the tree shift, then go still. 

  
  
_ You’re fine. You’re fucking fine. You’re tiny, it can hold you, just take it slow… _

__   
__   
He inched along for another foot and then it happened again but this time, his stomach did a somersault as he felt his body tipping forward and it was too late. A damningly loud cracking noise echoed around him with the snapping of wood, and the tree under him shuddered, tilted and began to slide down. 

  
  
Max’s instinct was to hold on for dear life, but then it collided with something. A rock, another tree maybe. And he was promptly ejected from it and was sent tumbling down the hill with nothing to absorb impact. He felt like he hit every sharp pebble, every pointy stick, every bump in the earth on his way down.   
  


When he finally came to a stop, he just laid there, the wind knocked out of him. He kept trying to suck in a breath, making an awful high pitched half-gasping sound until his lungs recovered and inhaled normally once more. Immediately, it sent him coughing and coughing made him groan and gingerly curl in on himself. _ Oh my god, why am I not dead. This sucks. I should be dead. I will be because Gwen will kill me _ . His stomach was where the pain was the worst. He wasn’t sure what had struck him in the abdomen, maybe a ledge or surface root, but that was the part that hurt the most. He was surprised he hadn’t--

  
  
Max lurched forward with a retch, losing about half of the dinner David had all but forced him to eat a short time ago in the dirt.  _ Nevermind _ . 

  
  
Once his stomach was empty, the reflex passed and he rolled onto his back again, shakily wiping his wet sleeve over his mouth. He laid there for a long time, the rain pattering against his face and hands, limply resting until he found the strength to haul himself upright. At least his backpack remained intact and had broken his fall some. Max wiggled his toes and fingers, checked his wrists and ankles, his knees and elbows and felt pretty certain nothing was broken. He was sore from getting rolled and bounced like a barrel, but there was no explosive pain from getting whacked in the head or anywhere else. 

  
  
Max stood up, trying not to let his legs shake so badly but he almost couldn’t stand at all. He hunched over, holding his stomach with a grimace. He breathed slowly until he felt he could stand normally. 

  
  
The first problem was that he had lost his phone. It had been hurled somewhere in the darkness, and he assumed it was broken since he couldn’t see the flashlight nearby. “Fan-fucking-tastic.”

  
  
Max didn’t want to go back to Camp Campbell empty handed, looking like the forest chewed him up and spat him out just for David to give him an I-Told-You-So. He knew with the slope-side on his left, he was facing camp. But on his right, he was facing the general direction of the campsite. Logic followed that if he went that way, he would still get there. It would just take longer, right? And then he could get back on the trail and search properly. 

  
  
Max squinted in the darkness at his bracelet, twisting it until the little compass was facing him and realized that the markings glowed in the dark. Then Max felt a little sting of guilt.

  
  
He was using a gift from David gave to him to directly disobey him. On top of that, he was disobeying an instruction that was purely based on David’s concern for him. That was a new level of screwed up for Max, but it was for a good cause. When it turned out, David wouldn’t be mad, right?

  
  
The more David supported him, the more he claimed to be proud of him and to care, the more Max had begun to believe it. Now he didn’t doubt David nearly as much as he used to. He even dared to think he had formed a tentative bond of trust. But then came the fear of disappointing him. Of letting him down, pissing him off or not being enough. If screwing it up somehow that David would be no different than the other adults in his life and wouldn’t want anything to do with him anymore.

  
  
And when David explicitly told him not to go alone into the Oregon forest at night in a thunder storm because it was dangerous and then Max went and did exactly that, then proved him right…

  
  
“He promised.” he muttered out loud. He could handle this. He had learned so much about what to do in these circumstances, he was sure he could manage one night in the woods. Keeping his eyes trained on his compass, Max set off in the general direction of the campsite.

  
  
It wasn’t nearly as direct as he thought it would be. The forest terrain was uneven, in some areas the trees or rock formations forced him to go around and there were parts where the ground become so steep again, he had to descend and go around and hope it ascended again somewhere. Hours later, Max had been trying to deny it but he couldn’t anymore. He should have come to the campsite area a long time ago, and he was  **exhausted** . 

  
  
In the lightning, he could see the trees form in a circle and the reflection of it on water. It was a landmark if there were any nearby, so he made his way to it and seemed to use up the last ounce of energy he had left before he fell down under a willow tree at the pond’s edge, somewhat out of the rain.

  
  
He did manage to pull his sleeping bag out of his pack and struggle into it, before he rested his head on his backpack and closed his eyes. 

  
  


* * *

  
Max woke up to sunlight hitting him square in the eyes and feeling like he had tetanus all over again with how badly all of his muscles hurt. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as best he could with dirty hands and carefully set himself up, taking a look at his surroundings. He could see the pond, and that he was sitting under a willow tree that had shielded him from the storm overnight.

  
  
He had to take inventory.   
  
He had no phone.    
  
He was completely lost.   
  
He might be hurt, but couldn’t tell.   
  
And Mr. Honeynuts was still gone. 

“_Unnghhh,_” he groaned, running his hands through his hair, feeling the dried mud crack apart that was plastered in it. “What the fuck do I do?! I should have fucking listened to David! God, can’t I just for once not make things worse?!”

  
  
He didn’t know who he was yelling at. The squirrels? The trees? Himself?

  
  
Whichever it was, he got no answers. Max tried to remember what his counselors told him. If you got lost, try to stay where you are for as long as you are safe and able. It will increase the chances of someone finding you. 

  
  
So Max waited as long as he could. He stopped by the pond to try to wash his hands and face, rinsed his hair out and felt a little better for it. He wished he had something to eat, but it wasn’t the first time he had ever gone hungry. He could handle it. But he did know that if he didn’t stay hydrated, he would be in trouble fast and after a big thunderstorm, it was hot and humid. He drank about a fourth of his water bottle before he decided he had to save the rest. 

  
  
The sun had moved more to the middle of the sky, telling Max a good amount of time had passed while he dozed and waited. He strained to hear if anyone was calling his name, but he couldn’t hear anyone, so he tried to mentally retrace his steps from the night before. Best as he could tell, he had wandered north for hours. He started to get the idea that he was closer to town than he was to camp, so if he kept going north and a little west, he would either hit down or hit a road, right? Then he could flag someone down and call Gwen and David. 

  
  
Max staggered to his feet, babying his stomach for a second before he began to follow the compass again. 

* * *

  
  
As much as they didn’t want to make a habit out of leaving the campers alone with Quartermaster, they didn’t have a choice. 

  
  
When David came sprinting into the cabin in a tizzy, yelling that Max was gone, they had flashlights and raincoats donned in a heartbeat. They had no idea how long he had been gone and how far he had gotten, but this was no regular rebellious act from Max. The way David described his behavior, Gwen was considered he was genuinely having some kind of mental crisis. To run away into a thunderstorm in pitch darkness in the forest after a teddy bear? 

  
  
“Why would he do this?”

  
  
She turned to look at David, who was still shining his flashlight through the trees for any sign of their camper. “Because he felt like he had no choice, David.”

  
  
“He did--  _ does! _ It’s not like I hid the truth, I told him how unsafe it was and I would go look myself.”

  
  
“I don’t think Max is able to think rationally, at least not right now. In his mind, it’s the end of the world unless he did something about it then and there. I mean, by the way he talks about his parents nowadays-- just think about it. His mother is mommy, but his dad is father. That’s weird, right? There’s a divide between the two, one is way more formal than the other. And then you mentioned this ‘rules’ thing that came up with him.”

  
  
“Gwen, I don’t want to think about this right now. I just want to look for him.”

  
  
“All I’m saying is that whatever place Max’s head is at, it isn’t anywhere you and I understand.” she said, reaching out to rest her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find him. And then I’m going to never let that little shit out of my fucking sight again.”

  
  
They kept to the trail, sticking to the theory that Max was retracing his steps to the campsite, calling his name over and over again. She could hear the desperation in David’s voice.  _ “Max! Max, come out if you can hear us! I promise we’re not mad!  _ ** _Max_ ** _ !” _

  
  
_ Please be okay,  _ she found herself thinking over and over again.  _ Please be okay, you little monster. Don’t be getting eaten by a mountain lion or laying in a ditch with a broken leg or bitten by a snake...If you’re okay, I’ll let you have all the pudding cups and watch all the scary movies you want-- _

  
  
“David,” she stopped and yanked on his arm. “David, turn off your flashlight, I think I see something!”

  
  
They both clicked off their lights and she clung to his arm, straining her eyes in the dark and a smile broke out across her face. She could see a bright white LED light up ahead, off the side of the trail. The only thing that stopped her from breaking into a sprint was David gripping her hand tight to stop her, “Wait, don’t run in the dark! You’ll twist an ankle.” he told her, but he was picking up his pace and turning his light back on. 

  
  
They hiked their way through the trees together, calling out to Max more fervently than before as they began to move alongside the trail. The trail rose into the slope next to them until they got to the point where it was no longer accessible but their hopes dropped when they found the source of the light. 

  
  
Max’s phone, with the little pine tree sticker on the back that Nikki gave him, covered in water and mud, the screen shattered to shit but the flashlight was still on. She watched David shakily hold it close and turn in a circle, his voice barely counting as a shout. One last plaintive, “Max?” as his gaze traveled up the slope where his flashlight picked out a fallen tree.

  
  
Gwen could see it in slow motion. Max slipping over the edge, the tree falling where he was walking, him losing his way in the dark and just walking right off. All of them too horrible to imagine, but they were all she could see.  _ Oh, God, no, not him. _

__   
  
She dropped her flashlight and hunched over with her hands on her knees, struggling to breathe but it was coming in full force. Her first true panic attack in a long time. All the time she had taken to coax Max through his, all the breathing exercises and mental strategies to keep from spiraling she had worked so hard to equip him with? She couldn’t remember a single one as she fell to her knees hyperventilating and David dropped to her side a moment later, wrapping his arms around her. “It probably just fell out of his backpack--”

  
  
“He was using it to see in the dark, the flashlight is on. It was in his hand, David! If anything happened to him--”

  
  
“If he was hurt, he would be close by but he isn’t. So that means he walked off.” he said, firmly taking her arm and standing slowly, coaxing her to do the same, however much she resisted. “Let’s do another radius for an hour and-- and if we don’t find him, we have to go back and call the authorities to search.”

  
  
David had to drag her the entire time by the hand, the rain pummeling their shoulders as they shouted Max’s name over and over again, careful not to lose their way. They must have done a half mile, maybe more in a partial circle out from the trail but they were met with silence and the gravity of the situation was clear. They had to turn and head back to camp, Gwen following David’s lead since he knew the forest best and could get them back just with a compass and his memory. She only let go of his hand when they crossed the boundary onto the campgrounds.

  
  
She collapsed in her desk chair and put her face in her hands, barely hearing David as he picked up the phone and made the call.   
  


When it was done, he came over and leaned against her desk, still wearing his raincoat. Neither of them felt like they could be any less than ready to go back out there. But he did pass her a towel, or tried to. She didn’t take it, so he just gently put it around her shoulders. “They want us to wait for them to get here.” he said. “And then one of us can go back out, the other has to stay here.”

  
  
“I’ll go,” she said, sitting up but he shook his head. “You’re better at keeping things together here, Gwen, and I know the forest preserve. I grew up here. I’ll be most useful helping them and where the campers can’t see me freaking out.”

  
  
He had a point. Gwen tugged her pony tail out and began to miserably dry her hair and face. “Did you ever get lost?”

  
  
“I ran away from home a few times, yeah. But I always found my way back or someone found me, I was never as far or as lost as I thought. And Max is way smarter than I was at his age.”

  
  
They said nothing for a long time. They waited in quiet anxiety, watching the windows of their cabin for the headlights of police cars pulling up at the front entrance. Gwen wanted to mentally prepare what she would tell the campers to reduce panic, but the same mantra kept repeating in her head as she unlocked her phone and swiped through her album to find the picture. Little Max, fast asleep and safe as can be between her and David. 

  
  
_ Please be okay.  _

__   
__   
** _Please_ ** __ .   
  



	4. Chapter 4

Max has strayed from the pond, but it lead into a creek that headed the same direction he was going. He felt like he remembered David mentioning something about how it was a good idea to follow water downstream if you could, but couldn’t recall why. Either way, he hadn’t run into many obstacles and it comforted him to have some semblance of a pathway to stick by.

  
He tried to ration his water until the sun was low in the sky but it was a hot day. He had taken off his hoodie and tied it around his waist, but even then he felt sluggish and hot, and his head hurt a little. He was even starting to feel dizzy. He hoped to find something to eat, but none of the berries he found were recognizable and he wasn’t dumb enough to roll the dice on them. And in a few hours, it was going to be dark.

  
First thing was first. He was out of water.

  
Max found a spot on the creek bank to dump his backpack and began gathering up rocks from the shore. Enough time had passed that he was able to find some dry wood, and he created a decent pile next to his makeshift fire pit. Now he just needed tinder. Dry grass or leaves were probably best. He considered using the bracelet, but he didn’t want to resort to that just yet. He wandered along the bank for a while, making sure he never lost sight of it until he spotted something. Cattails.

  
_ “Normally I wouldn’t tell you kids to pick these, and we’re not going to, because they’re a protected species. But if you really have to, cattail fluff is the best tinder and you can eat the stems and leaves. Boiling them is probably a good idea, though…” _

  
Listening to David paid off some of the time.

  
Max picked as many of the youngest looking ones he could, and hurried back to his little camp to get to work. He made a teepee with his smaller sticks and broke apart the cigar-like part of the plant and stuffed the inside with it, sitting with the wind against his back to shield it as he began to scrape his magnesium lighter towards it, trying to get the fluff to catch a spark. His hands were trembling and fatigued, so it was much harder to do than before but he felt hopeful when he began to get a smoke. Carefully feeding it, he got a small fire going just as the sun was halfway dipping below the horizon.

  
He got some water from the stream and put it in the fold-able travel pot he hadn’t returned after the nature hike, and set it carefully on the little cabin he had built over the fire with the handle sticking out. He let it boil once, then removed it to cool, then boiled it a second time to be sure. He was kind of proud that he could recall so much from survival camp, and he had a new appreciation for it.

  
He poured half of it into his water bottle, then used the rest to boil the stems of the plants for dinner. They didn’t exactly taste great, and the texture was _ interesting _ , but he chewed them up and choked them down. At the very least, he felt better without an empty stomach.  


As Max settled into his sleeping bag for the night, he tried not to think too much on the fact that a whole day had gone by, and he hadn’t seen any other people. He had made sure to feed the fire some more with larger chunks of wood he had found, and hoped it would keep going through the night. Luckily, it didn’t drop under 65 degrees while he slept.

  
He had thought he wouldn’t be able to sleep, but he knew he dozed off since it was quite dark and he wasn’t sure what was going on. _ Something _ had woken up. A lot of loud snapping and a snuffling sound nearby. Max groggily rolled over, his back sore from sleeping on the hard and uneven ground, to get a look at it.  
  
  
He felt a cold prickle on the back of his next as a large shape moved in the darkness, lumbering by as it nosed through the ground. In the very dim light of the last embers, his eyes adjusted and picked out the shape of a large bear not even twenty feet away from him.  
  
_ Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck! _ _  
_  
He was panicking so badly, he could barely remember anything he knew about a bear encounter. Gwen and David had gone over them a few times, as best they could with Nikki’s constant input. But he could remember a little. _ Stay calm. Walk away, don’t run. And don’t take your eyes off of it. _  
  
Max began to slowly and quietly ease himself out of his sleeping bag and picked up his backpack. It was huge, but in the darkness he couldn’t tell what color it was. Black bears and grizzlies were wildly different. Were there even grizzlies in Oregon? He knew there was black bears.  
  
He began to slowly pick up his sleeping bag but when he drew it closer, it bumped the pot and it clinked against the firepit rocks. The bear stopped and so did Max. He dropped his sleeping bag and slowly raised his gaze to see if the bear was any closer. It _ definitely _knew he was there. It was looking straight at him and as they met eyes, it took two heavy bounding strides forward and stood up on its hind legs. As if that was fucking necessary, it was already a monster. And then it let out a bellowing roar that shook him right to the bones.

  
He was mortified he did it, but Max knew he screamed. He was sure right then, it was going to run up and tear him open. He forgot everything except turning tail and booking it out of there, leaving the rest of his supplies and running as fast as he could through the trees, splashing through the creek. He briefly glanced over his shoulder to see the bear was lumbering off, with two little shapes following it shortly after.  
  
_ She was just trying to scare me away, _ he realized. _ She has babies. _ _  
_ _  
_ That didn’t stop him from running until he couldn’t any more, though. He didn’t know if the dad bear stayed with them, but he didn’t want to fucking find out.  
  
When he really couldn’t run any more, his chest burning and lungs making him cough every time he breathed, Max stopped and leaned against a tree to catch his breath. As the adrenaline thinned out, he donned a shaky smile. “I saw a real bear. Three _ real _ bears,” he whispered to himself. He couldn’t wait to tell Gwen and…  
  
**Focus** .  
  
Now that he was able to calm down, he took a look at his compass. The creek flowed north, and he had crossed it and run straight on from there. Or so he was pretty certain. That meant he had gone a chunk east, north-east maybe, so...If he just doubled back west, he would find it again. And the bears wouldn’t be following him, that much he was certain.  
  
Max followed his plan and the sky began to slowly lighten as he walked, the sky gradually turning violet and lilac as it did just before the sun began to crest the horizon. He quickened his steps when he could hear running water, and true to his theory, he kept going west. After wrestling through some bushes, he found himself on the banks again.  
  
Except it wasn’t a creek.  
  
He wouldn’t call it a river, it was too small but it was a heavier body of water flowing over rocks and some tree branches washed into it by the storm, still swollen from the rain. David, Gwen and even some of the other kids could stomp through it with a mild challenge at most. But Max couldn’t swim.  
  
“My feet will touch the bottom, though.” he argued with himself. And he had to get to the other side. He couldn’t wuss out.  
  
Max undid the chest strap of his backpack and switched it around to his front, hugging it as he began to gingerly wade into it. Despite the summer weather, it was shockingly cold and he felt his muscles seize as it instantly soaked his shoes and socks. “Son of a--!”  
  
Deep breaths. He put his backpack on his head with one hand, moving more towards the middle and as he stepped down into a dip in the riverbed and he was suddenly up to his chest in cold water. It felt a little harder to breathe, but he just focused on moving forward without tripping. He wasn’t sure he could get his head back above the water if he fell. Just as he was considering turning back now that the water was almost past his shoulders, the ground started to angle upwards again.  
  
_ Almost there-- _

Max must have stepped on a loose bit of gravel. When he put his foot down, his toes dug into the river bank and it gave out under him and he didn’t even have time to cry out before his ears were filled with a sound he wasn’t familiar with. Muffled, busy, loud, static. He tried to open his eyes but they stung in the murky water and he let go of his backpack, trying to find his way back up to the surface. His chest was burning. His head felt like it was going to explode.  
  
He felt himself being moved with the water until there was a tug on his arm; his bracelet was caught on something and it stopped him from being tossed around uncontrollably by the current. But when he pulled on whatever it was, it came loose and rolled over him. He lost his breath as a sharp edge of wood cut into his back, near the middle under his left shoulder and he felt the water warm around it with his blood.  
  
But with the tree branch out of his way, he found the bank again and clawed his way up it, his head breaking the surface as he dragged himself onto the shore and collapsed there. He was shivering. Cold, exhausted. He had lost all of his supplies. He just felt exactly like someone who almost drowned would feel like. 

Max decided he wasn’t going to move for a little while. He was just going to lay there, bleed a little, nap a bit and hope he woke up after.  


* * *

  
  
  
David hadn’t slept at all the first night, and he scoured the forest with a team of forestry officers the next day. He had given them Max’s description. They first went all the way to the campsite, many of them staying on the trail in case he wandered along it, but they confirmed he wasn’t in the area. The idea was that he never even made it there. Still, David lingered behind to keep his promise and scanned around carefully as he took up the rear of the party.  
  
He saw it just beyond the entrance to the camp, nestled among leaves and rained on to hell, falling apart and sadder than ever. The bear. It must have fallen out of Max’s backpack when all the kids were running out onto the pathway. David tried to pick it up carefully, but it lost an ear and an arm, the west having worn away the final seams of what had been holding it together. It was barely recognizable. Still, he gathered up what he could and tucked it away in his backpack. At the very least, he had done **something** .  
  
  
They continued their search in the radius of the trail where they all believed Max was likely to be based on where they found his phone. All David could think was that if he had never left Max alone, this wouldn’t be happening. 

  
  
He had worked so hard to help Max be happy, and be there for him when he couldn’t be. He tried to understand him, he tried to give him what he needed to improve but David felt like he didn’t actually know how to take care of Max. As he followed the rangers through the trees, a steady chorus of _ “Max! Max! Max?” _ was carried between all of them, then a pause for ten seconds to see if he responded. Then they called again. Then paused. And so it had been going on for hours. 

Finally, they forced him to turn back at dark. He wasn’t official, he was a volunteer and he was running himself ragged. Only when they agreed he could jump back in at first light did he go back to camp. And even _ then _ , despite his legs hurting and his whole body feeling like lead, David didn’t get a wink of sleep.  
  
He couldn’t get his mind off of all the signs. The scar, the ‘rules’, all the little things that made Max flinch or withdraw, or that triggered his aggressive behavior in defense of himself. He was absolutely certain that if Max thought he could without his parents finding out, he would tell them everything about his home life. And if Max would endanger himself like this over a stuffed animal, there was no telling how unstable the kid really was. Did he just not understand the severity of his actions? Or did he not care? 

“Hey,” he snapped out of it at the sound of Gwen’s voice and her knocking on his bedpost. She didn’t look rested either, but she was holding two mugs. “Cocoa?”  
  
“Thanks,” he mumbled, sitting up and taking it from her. She gave his shoulder a shove and he obliged, moving over so she could sit on the bed next to him, their legs touching. He sipped it quietly, not tasting it but the warmth helped. A moment later, Gwen tossed a paperclipped bundle on his lap. He blinked at it and slowly began to open it, “What is this?”  
  
“I _ think _ I found Max’s dad.”  
  
Her tone of voice was so dark, so _ hateful _ that it just made the knot in his stomach worse as he thumbed through the article she had found, screenshot printings of a newspaper in the same county as Portland but he didn’t recognize the town name.The article was short and sweet, about a new private church that had opened and only allowed select individuals for worship. It mentioned the leader of the church, Father Sunil **Purohit** . It went into detail that the church’s purpose was to help rehabilitate troubled individuals, and had many programs to help single parents, displaced families and so on, rationalizing why it wasn’t available to the public. People could apply for membership, or be reached out to by them.  
  
He could see an Indian looking man standing in front of a stark white stone church, with short cropped graying hair and a full but neatly trimmed beard speaking with church goers. He was wearing a crisp white clerical shirt and white dress pants with a book in one hand. His build was solid, and he was definitely no pushover. The picture labeled him as the supposed Father mentioned in the article. He didn’t look friendly, but he didn’t look exactly like the evil mean-faced man David had been expecting. He was well groomed, calm, and people seemed happy to be talking to him.  
  
“Max’s dad is a _ priest? _ ” he asked incredulously. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Look at the next picture.” she said, flipping the page and pointing it out.  
  
This part of the article described the family’s story. Immigrants from India, seeking a better life and to help disenfranchised people like themselves. He gripped the edges of the paper tightly, his eyes trained on the family photo. It was Sunil, and a young looking woman next to him, too young. Her hair was tied back in a neat bun and she had gentle, rounded doe eyes, with brilliant green eyes just like her son, who she was holding by the hand. He was half hiding behind her, but there was enough to pick out the defining features. Heavy black wavy hair, green eyes, cuddling his teddy bear in his free arm, which still had both eyes and looked much newer. He had never seen a picture of a baby Max, but he just knew him when he saw him.  
  
  
“Is it just me or does she look scared?” he said quietly. He was an expert on forced smiles, and Max looked like he was just trying to hide away. It did surprise him a little how well dressed they all were, though. They looked like they came from money. 

  
  
“She looks like she’s still in high school.”  
  
  
“That, too.”  
  
  
Gwen set their hot chocolate aside for them and laid down again. David laid down next to her, unable to stop staring at the pictures. At a tiny shy Max who somewhere between then and now became the kid that meant so much to David. His young mother with the look in her eyes of a trapped creature. And his father who exhibited no emotion at all.  
  
  
“We have to sleep, Dave,” she reached over and took it from him. “We’re just gonna screw up left and right tomorrow if we’re going two days without any.”  
  
  
“I’ll try in a little bit, Gwen.”  
  
After she went to bed, David dug out some craft supplies they kept in the cabin, and briefly left to the facilities. It was a painstaking project, removing all the stuffing from Mr. Honeynuts, taking out the seams and buttons, but he found what fabric was salvageable and ran it through the wash and drier carefully. They only had so much fabric, but luckily it was just a patch work job and he had just enough. It was a darker brown than the original, but it was better than nothing. David restuffed the bear, carefully stitched its body and limbs back together, fixed the ears and found the closest matching button to its one eye and attached it. And just for fun, he added a zipper and pocket to its back.  
  
A little worse for wear, but he thought it was passing. It admittedly looked better than he had seen it in a long time, clean and without stuffing sticking out and intact. Finally, he trudged back to his cabin and set the bear on the head of his bed, and laid down for some much needed sleep.  
  
He must have gotten at least five, six hours before he was woken up by the blaring ring of his phone. He grabbed it off of the nightstand and rolled over, putting it to his ear.

  
“Dav--David Rowntree speaking,” he said, trying to sound as awake as possible.

  
_ “Hello, Mr. Rowntree, this is Officer Holden. We’ve located Max Purohit, and are transporting him to Sleepy Peak General. Are you able to meet us there?” _

  
  
David could swear his heart stopped. “Is he hurt?”

  
  
_ “As far as our paramedics confirmed, he’s just exhausted and has a few scrapes, but we’re taking him to the hospital to make sure.” _

  
  
“Can I talk to him?”

  
  
_ “He’s asleep at the moment.” _

  
  
“Alright, l-let me get dressed and I’ll drive into town. An hour, tops.”

  
  
_ “Of course. See you soon.” _   


David threw his phone down onto the bed and ran over to Gwen, pulling her upright by the shoulders as she groaned and tried to push him away. “Begone…”

  
  
“Gwen, wake up! They found him!”

  
  
She peeked open one eye. “What?”

  
  
“They found Max, he’s okay! They’re taking him to the hospit-- **Oh** .”

  
  
He stopped talking as she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. He could feel her shoulders shudder and hear her sniffling, and once he was recovered from his surprise, he hugged her back. “I’m never letting that little monster out of my sight again,” her voice was muffled in his shirt but he could hear it trembling. He rubbed soothing circles on her back and sat with her for as long as he felt comfortable before leaning away. “Come on,” he said, smiling at her and tucking her messy hair behind her ear. He didn’t know what came over him when he did it. “Let’s go see him.”  
  
The last thing they grabbed before leaving was the teddy bear, and it was a quiet drive with the radio softly playing. He glanced at Gwen out of the corner of his eye, the wind ruffling her hair through the window. “Penny for your thoughts?” he asked.

  
  
“God, you are such a cheese.”

  
  
“Sorry,” he smiled, and she smiled back at him. It reassured him a little that she was doing better.

  
  
“I’m thinking I’m gonna take him to get some new shoes.” she said, looking back out the window. “On the way back, we can stop at the store.”

  
  
“We can say it’s an early or late birthday present.”

  
  
Forty five minutes later, they found a parking spot at the hospital and all but ran inside. After getting checked in, they were pointed to Max’s room and the doctor met them outside before they were allowed in. David recognized her immediately. “Doctor Herrera.”  
  
Normally she was more friendly, but she didn’t even smile at them when they spoke. She just glanced through the door and then back at the two of them. “I wish we met under better circumstances, Mr. Rowntree, but I’m afraid there’s a bit of a problem with Max.”  
  
Gwen anxiously gripped the teddy bear in her hands and looked at him. “What _ kind _ of problem?”  
  
“All things considered, it could be much worse. He’s exhausted, very dehydrated and hungry and has bumps and bruises everywhere. Said he fell down a slope. But he has a gash on his back he won’t let us treat. We have to remove his shirt but when anyone tries, it’s-- it’s…” she faltered as she tried to find the words. “It’s the tantrum to end all tantrums, and I would rather not have to medicate him. He even hit a few of the nurses, and I mean **hit ** them.”  
  
“What can we do?” David asked, crossing his arms anxiously. He wasn’t going to mention he was the one who taught Max how to hit properly.  
  
  
“He knows you, maybe you can keep him calm enough.”  
  
  
He exchanged a look with Gwen, who shrugged. “It’s worth a try. Let’s go.”  


Together, they stepped into the hospital room, where they saw Max for the first time in almost two days.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (So the final chapter ended up pretty long, so I'm splitting it into two, haha. The next one will be posted right after this. Warning for all of you, the last one will be quite angsty. The warning for child abuse mention has been in the tags from the get go, but it's going to be a little intense next chapter. Just a heads up.)

Max heard the door swing open and shut behind him, making him tense all over again. He was so tired, but he was ready to give them hell again if he had to. “I said I’m not fucking--” he started to growl and turned around, and the rug was pulled out from under him. He didn’t see people in white clothes trying to stick an I.V in his hand and violate his personal space. No, he saw an idiot with red hair and a stupid bandana and a bitch with a teddy bear that did not belong to her.   
  
He couldn’t even find his voice. They smiled at him, when they should have been yelling. He watched Gwen come over to him slowly and offer him the bear, which looked different but it was him. With shaking hands, he took him from her and looked at his face, one button eye slightly smaller than the other. “I’m sorry, buddy,” he whispered, his voice shaking as he hugged Mr. Honeynuts tight and buried his face against the clean smelling fabric.    
  
His counselors pulled chairs up to the side of the bed and sat down in front of him. He could see how tired they looked, and tried not to feel shitty about it, but he did. They shouldn’t have wasted sleep on him. He kept sub consciously petting one of Mr. Honeynut’s ears between his fingers, something that helped calm him since he was little. “You-- you don’t have to yell at me.” he said, keeping his head down. “I learned my fucking lesson.”   
  
“Max, all we care about is that you’re safe.” David said. _ That fucking guilt-tripper _ . “You went on a pretty big adventure, didn’t you?”   
  
“I...I saw bears.”   
  
“No way,” Gwen leaned forward, tilting her head at an angle to catch his eye and he looked up to avoid her. It was kind of funny.   
  
“Y-yeah, a mom and two babies. Scared the shit out of me. I thought she was going to bite my head off if I didn’t get the fuck away from her. Kind of reminded me of you, Gwen.”

  
“Aww.”   
  


“Where were you going, Max?” David cut in.   
  
“I was looking for him,” he answered, finally looking at them as he gestured with Mr. Honeynuts. “But...I slipped off the trail. And fell. And I couldn’t get back up and I thought I could go around. When I figured out I was lost, I just tried to go north towards town.”   
  
“That was smart. They picked you up a mile from it, you almost made it.” Gwen said.   
  
“Yeah, almost.” Max muttered, trying to shrug but winced. The cut on his back stung pretty badly. “I was doing okay until the bears got me off course. I boiled water to drink, I found cattails to eat, I followed the compass...”   
  
“You remembered survival camp?” David asked with a goofy smile.    
  
“I remembered stuff you taught me. Can I go back to camp yet? I just want to forget about this shit.” He just wanted to sleep in his tent and not have anything like this happen again for the rest of the summer. He watched his counselors look at each other and hesitate. “What? What the hell is it?”   
  
“You can when you’re fully treated,” Gwen said. “Otherwise we can’t take you back.”   
  
“That’s bullshit!”   
  
“You might need stitches,” David said patiently. “And it has to be cleaned, so you don’t get another infection. It will be done before you know it and we can get ice cream on the way back, how’s that?”   
  
He didn’t give a shit about ice cream for once. He didn’t care about how logical David was sounding, he didn’t care about their reasoning. He wasn’t doing it. He scooted back on the bed and hugged his bear. He felt the bed shift as Gwen set down on it next to him. “Hey.”   
  
“Hey.”   
  
“Why won’t you let them help you?”   
  
“None of your fucking business, that’s why!”   
  
He didn’t mean to shout and he wilted immediately under the look Gwen gave him. The  ** _do not fuck with me, little man_ ** look. But she threw him for a loop when she laid her hand on his head and ran it over his hair, picking out bits of leaves as she did. “Max, you know they’re going to do their jobs whether or not you want them to. If they have to, they’ll sedate you and I’m sorry kiddo, but I’ll let them because I care more about you not getting landed in here for another two weeks with a blood infection than anything else. Unless you think I should? But then you’ll have to tell me what it is.”   
  
_ I want to tell you _ , he thought, biting the inside of his cheek so hard his mouth filled with a metallic taste.   
  
“Max,” David said quietly, “Can you not tell us because it’s against the rules?”   
  
_ Fuck _ . He wasn’t sure if he hated that David figured it out, or if he was relieved that a communication gap had finally been closed. All Max could manage was a nod, trying his best to breathe calmly. He knew that he wasn’t getting out of this. When the doctor saw his wound, she would see everything else and there wouldn’t be any way to keep hiding the truth. It would all be chaos from there. They would try to take him away from his parents. He would never see his mother again, and his father would never let him go and he would pay for it for the rest of his life.    
  
“What happened to Mr. Honeynuts?” he asked, trying to change the subject.    
  
“Oh. Well, when I found him, he wasn’t doing so great, so I washed him and patched him up. Does he look okay?”   
  
“He looks happy,” Max’s voice broke. “Thanks, David.”

  
“You’re-- you’re welcome, kiddo...He’s very special to you, huh?”   
  
Max found himself curling up against Gwen’s side, like he could use her to hide away from everything but there was nowhere to go anymore. “He’s the only one who cares about me,” his voice was barely more than a whisper. “I was never really alone with him.”   
  
“Oh, Max, that’s not true.”   
  
“What?”   
  
“Gwen and I care about you. And Nikki and Neil, and lots of others. Mr. Honeynuts is still your best friend, but he isn’t your only friend, remember?” David said, standing up from his chair and taking a seat on the bed with the two of them, smiling at Max reassuringly. 

  
Max felt like if he looked at the two of them for very long, he would finally crack. He would break down bawling in front of them and they would hug him and keep saying nice shit and he would tell them everything, and it would be the last time he ever fucked up like that because his father would probably kill him. “I don’t--” his voice was higher than normal and he could barely get it to work at all. “I don’t want you to see my back. You’re going to freak out.”   
  
He could feel them staring at him, and he knew all manner of terrible things they must be thinking. Some of them were probably right. “Okay,” David said quietly, gesturing for Gwen to get off the bed. They knelt down on the same side and he took one of Max’s hands, and Gwen took the other, encouraging him to sit on the edge with his feet hanging over it. “Then we’ll just look at your face. And we’ll be right here while Dr. Herrera works and when she’s done, we’re going home.”   
  
_ Home. _   
  
“And ice cream. You said ice cream,” he added.    
  
“You can eat ice cream ‘til you puke, kid.” Gwen grinned and David elbowed her gently with a disapproving look.    
  
They waited until Max was ready and Dr. Herrera came back. Admittedly, he did like her. She didn’t baby him but she was nice, and she was good and quick at her job. Gwen helped him tug his shirt over his head and set it aside, and he could see their eyes get wide. He had bruises all over from his tumble, but Dr. Herrera reassured him they had done an X-ray and it was purely surface damage. Most of them would be gone in three days minimum. And that was until she looked at his back.   
  
He heard her gasp and closed his eyes, silent tears rolling down his cheeks. He felt David and Gwen squeezed his hands to comfort him, heard Gwen quietly say, “You got this, kiddo, deep breaths. I’ll do them with you…” And she coached him the entire time. It was the only thing keeping him from completely losing his shit.    
  
The doctor used a numbing spray before she cleaned out the cut and after palpating it gently, she confirmed with a smile, “Stitches won’t be necessary. I’ll get this bandaged up and send you on your way.”   
  
Max couldn’t get his shirt back on fast enough, and hopped off the bed, hugging his bear as tight as he could manage. He just wanted to get the fuck out of there. With his heart pumping loudly in his ears, he barely heard David thank her before she stopped him by the arm. “Can I talk to you for a moment, Mr. Rowntree?”   
  
“Of course. Max, are you okay waiting outside with Gwe--?”   
  
He was already speed walking through the door, dragging Gwen with him by the hand. The bomb was about to go off. He didn’t want to be in ground zero.    
  


* * *

  
  
  
David watched as Dr. Herrera took her phone from her pocket with one hand and snapped a quick picture of Max’s back before putting it away, all the while cleaning the wound with her other hand so Max wouldn’t get suspicious. He was half despairing, half grateful for her discretion.    
  
He could see every purple and yellowish-green bruise on Max’s stomach, chest and arms from a fall down the steep slope where they had found his phone. He couldn’t stop thinking how lucky he was that he didn’t hit his head or break something. But it was over quickly and Max was dressed in a heartbeat and trying to make a speedy escape.    
  
As asked, David stayed behind with the doctor, who was opening her phone the moment Max couldn’t see or hear them anymore. “Did you know about these?” she asked tensely, turning it around so he could see the picture.   
  
The whole world seemed to slow to a stop, and David felt sickened. All of his worst fears, confirmed. He knew the cigarette burn scar was there, but there were more, at least four of them spaced apart. And somehow, that was not even the most horrifying detail. There were two patches of horizontal line-shaped scars, overlapping unevenly and then a few random others of the same nature all over the rest of Max’s back. They were in various stages of age, some of them fading and more healed than others, some as fresh as the last year if David had to guess but he didn’t want to.   
  
“I knew about that one,” he said hoarsely, pointing to the one he was referring to. “I knew-- I knew things were bad at home. We were helping him to talk about it. He started writing it down. We just thought rushing him might be trauma--”

  
He couldn’t even finish that sentence as he buried his face in his hands, trying to comprehend how anyone could do this to a  _ child _ . To a little boy completely dependent on them, who trusted them and needed them and then they chose to hurt him and neglect him instead. How fundamentally  **broken ** inside did a person have to be to do that?   
  
He forced himself to breathe calmly and ran a hand over his head, blinking back furious tears. “I know what happens next.”   
  
“Yes. We’re both mandated reporters, David. I understand your reasons, but this is out of our hands now. That boy needs higher intervention.”   
  
  
“Can I talk to him first? Please. Just so he understands what’s going to happen. I’ll help you put together the report after with what we know, tomorrow morning. I don’t want him to be scared...”   
  
She sighed and put her phone away with a solemn nod. “I don’t doubt you were doing your best, Mr. Rowntree. It’s a very difficult situation. Go on, he’s probably starting to wonder, we’ll be in touch.”   
  
David left the room in a haze, the picture scoured into his brain until he looked down and saw Max staring up at him. Those big brilliant green eyes, just like his mother’s, filled with apprehension. He knew that Max knew but he just reached down with a smile and ruffled his hair gently. “We’ll talk later. Ice cream first.”   
  
He was pretty tired, so Gwen gave him a ride on her back to the car and David drove them to the tiny shopping center in town. It was more like a street that was all stores, but it was where everyone went. David could remember getting ice cream, guitar strings and a new coat here when he was a kid. This was where everyone got everything. They stopped to get ice cream first. Gwen got chocolate chip coffee, David got cookie dough and they let Max get a double scoop, chocolate and strawberry with a ton of whipped cream and M&M’s.    
  
“Where are we going?” Max asked, following them down a block to the clothing store.    
  
“To put those poor things out of their misery,” Gwen said, pointing to his shoes as David held the door for them.   
  
They made their way to the shoe section, and he left Gwen to help Max pick out a pair. Poor Max looked so bewildered and suspicious, as Gwen helped to measure his foot and then told him to go pick out a pair he liked in that size. He was just eyeing something blue when David split off to the clothes section.

  
He grabbed some pants and t-shirts he thought might fit Max, then a blue raincoat, socks and so on. At least four full outfits aside from the coat, and he paid for them (and kept the receipt in case they didn’t fit) and put them in the car before he met them back inside. 

  
  
Gwen was just checking the shoes Max had picked out fit, “Your toes aren’t touching the end?”   
  
“No…”   
  
“And you like them?”   
  
“I guess?” She gave him a look and he revised his answer with more certainty, “Yeah, I do.” 

Gwen took off the tags so he could wear them out, and gave them to the cashier to scan. Max kept rocking to and fro on each foot, probably marveling at how much more comfortable they were. David knew he was being very quiet, but he didn’t want to risk his temper coming out. He was getting angrier every second.  _ They couldn’t have bothered to even buy him some decent fucking clothes to wear? _

“One last stop, guys.” He said, trying to sound cheerful as they piled into his beat up car and he pulled around the corner, heading to the nearby park. It was pretty empty at this time of day, and he was thankful for it as he parked and got out with the two of them.    
  
They walked quietly with Max between them along the park path. There were two playsets, picnic tables everywhere, beautiful gardens but his favorite was the duck pond with the willow trees. That’s where he steered Max and Gwen, and they found a spot under a tree to sit. It was so quiet and peaceful, sunlight filtering through the swaying branches. He could remember having picnics here and singing along with his mother’s guitar while Granda taught him how to skip rocks, to catch turtles and then let them go. Good memories he wished Max could have. 

  
_ Help me, Mom. I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to mess this up _ .

  
“Max, how about you go play for a little bit?” He suggested, and Max gave him the most indignant look he had ever seen. “Play,” he repeated in a flat voice. “I don’t ‘play’, David, I’m not four.”   
  
He didn’t have the wherewithal to come up with a decent response. “I just need to talk to Gwen, and it’s a private conversation.”   
  
“Oh...kay?”   
  
“Go, Max, I’ll call you when we’re done.”   
  
He watched Max uncertainly wander off to the playground, where he just found a swing to sit on and swayed on it idly, his toes barely scuffing the woodchips.  _ At least he’s out of earshot _ . Gwen leaned against the tree and he joined her, checking his phone to see if Dr. Herrera had texted him at all but nothing. She was probably busy with other patients. “Dave,” Gwen bumped his shoulder with hers. “You in there? What’s going on? You look like you’re, well...if I didn’t know you were you, I’d say contemplating murder.”   
  
“I might be,” he muttered darkly, starting to crack his knuckles. It was a bad habit he’d had for a long time, but he was doing it more often than he used to. He stopped when Gwen reached over and covered his hands with one of her own, “Whatever it is, you have to stay calm.” She said quietly. “For Max. He can’t see you angry, he might not understand it isn’t directed at him.”   
  
“You should be a school counselor or something. You’d be great at it. Kids would love you, and you would be good at helping them.”   
  
“You’re sweet, but you’re avoiding the conversation.”   
  
David crossed his arms to avoid any fidgeting and closed his eyes. “Dr. Herrera took a picture of Max’s back. He’s covered in scars, Gwen. Someone’s been hitting him for a  _ long  _ time.”   
  
“Jesus fucking...”   
  
“How can they do that to him?” his voice was shaking. “He’s just a little kid, Gwen. They’re supposed to protect him and  _ love  _ him. He’s their son. They raised him from a baby, he’s been completely dependent on them, he has no other choice but to be and they just...Tell me, Gwen. Because I-I’m at a loss, I can’t fucking fathom it.”   
  
She was quiet for a long time, and he could see her watching Max around the tree, who wasn’t looking at them. “There isn’t an answer, David. Sometimes people do monstrous things and there’s no simple explanation, and trying to find it will just drive you crazy. What matters now is that we keep a level head, and make sure Max gets help properly. He’s not going to make it easy.”   
  
“So how do we make it easier for him?”   
  
“We coach him through the process to come, make sure he understands what’s happening so he doesn’t get scared and lash out and make it harder on himself.”   
  
“What if he won’t talk to us or the social worker?”   
  
“There’s proof of physical abuse. Doesn’t matter what he says, no one in their right fucking mind would send that kid back to his parents.”   
  
“And then what, he ends up in a foster home? Max is an amazing,  _ wonderful  _ kid but it takes a long time to get to know him and not everyone will make the effort. What if he just gets passed around the system?”   
  
“He might,” Gwen admitted, tucking her hair behind her ears the way she did when she was thinking. “But we would be around, wouldn’t we? And it will be better, even if it’s not ideal. When do you want to talk to him? Today?”   
  
He watched Max start to nod off, then picked his head up and get off the swing, rubbing his eyes as he did. “...No. Let’s give him a breather. It doesn’t have to be tonight.”

  
They walked back to the playground together and Gwen gestured silently for Max to come over, which he did but he wouldn’t get too close to them. There was no way he didn’t know what they had been talking about, but if he wanted to avoid it for a little while, David didn’t blame him. He slowed his steps to walk side by side with Max, who looked away from him. “Doing okay? Do you want me to carry you?”   
  
“I’m not an infant, David.”   
  
“You just look tired,” he said patiently. “You’ve been through a lot.”   
  
“Is this going to be a thing?” Max growled, stopping in his tracks. “Talking about me like I’m not here, treating me like I’m too fucking fragile to handle shit? I’m not. You have no fucking idea what I can handle.”   
  
“You’re right.” David said.   
  
That always got Max to shut up quick. While he thought of a response, David took his chance. “I don’t have any idea what it’s like to be you, Max. I can’t imagine how exhausting it is to be you, to always be hyper vigilant and never knowing who’s going to help or hurt. Am I close?”   
  
“Maybe,” Max grumbled.    
  
“If you want to know what’s going on, you just have to ask.”   
  
“I’m good.”   
  
“Are you su--”   
  
“I said I’m fucking good, asshole!”   
  
It was a quiet drive back. Max slouched in his seat and pretended to nap, but David and Gwen let him. David put on the Johnny Cash c.d Max liked, but didn’t feel much like singing along. He just stared worriedly at the road ahead, anxiously tapping his fingers on the wheel until Gwen laid a hand on his shoulder and he calmed a little. When they got back, Max said nothing to them as he slammed the car door, but Gwen stopped him. “I don’t need to tell you to stay in your tent tonight, do I?”   
  
Max muttered something as David got the shopping bags out of the car. He hadn’t given them to Max yet, but he did dig out the set of pajamas he had grabbed. Gwen leaned down closer to him, “Say again?” she growled.   
  
“I’ll stay in my tent.” Max huffed and smacked her arm as she ruffled his hair to make it even messier.    
  
“Max, wait.” David knelt down in front of him, holding out the bundle of blue flannels. “I know you lost some of your clothes in that backpack, so...here.”   
  
The boy tucked his bear under his arm and took them slowly. David wondered if he would ever get used to being gifted things. He watched Max struggle internally, before David just gave him a nudge on his back. “Go on, get some sleep.”   
  
He watched until he saw Max go inside his tent for certain, and reluctantly went back to the cabin with Gwen.    



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I will post a link on my tumblr to the song David is singing. Thank you all so so much for your support. I won't lie, I cried a little through part 3. I've been where Max is at, though luckily not as severe. It's tough to seek help when it hasn't really been an option and the first few tries bombed. But it's worth getting it. Dadvid cuddles to wrap it up. See you all in part 4! I love you all!)

The pajamas were soft and comfortable, and the first real new clothes he had gotten in a very long time, exempting the shoes and the hoodie his mother had likely sent for the appearance of normality. But even then, Max had trouble getting to sleep that night. Every time he closed his eyes, something made him lurch awake. He thought he heard a bear outside of his tent, or a clap of thunder that wasn’t really there, or even thought someone was slowly pulling his blanket off. _ You’re being paranoid, idiot. _   
  
Finally, he curled up tight, buried his face against Mr. Honeynuts and squeezed his eyes shut. Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to… _   
_ _   
_ _ When Max woke up, he was confused. He opened his eyes to a purely white space. White hardwood floors, white painted walls with perfectly simple molding, a white desk, white bookcases. Anything that could be white was. And there was a familiar smell that always made him feel nauseous and his head hurt, but there was a little warning voice in his head not to cough and not to show it. Among the white, there were the gray ash colored curls of smoke from a cigarette as a large hand tapped ash off of it into a glass tray. Max watched out of the corner of his eye with his head down. _   


_ He was so tired. He just wanted to lay down so badly, but then a deep, patient voice said, “Maximos.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ And he sat ramrod straight in attention. He heard his father’s chair move and his heavy footsteps as he made his way to stand behind Max, who tensed up and tried with all his might not to tremble. “I’m sor--” he began, but went silent as a hand gripped the back of his neck. He couldn’t help but think if Father wanted to, he could just end him right there. He couldn’t stop tears from welling up and falling, and it was just made worse with Sunil gave him a rough shake. “Stop that.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “I can’t,” Max sobbed. “I’m sorry. I”m really trying, I swear…I can’t help it!” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “No, you can’t. It’s just how you were born. _ ** _Weak_ ** _ .” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “I know,” he mumbled. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “You should have died as an infant. It would have been the one thing you could have done right.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “I’ll do better…” He couldn’t keep up in class. He couldn’t stay awake. He drew attention, and he had failed again. It was the fourth school. Deep down, he knew it was the last one. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “That’s what you always say, and you never do. But every soul deserves a chance to atone. And what’s the best way to become more pure, Maximos?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Max kept staring at his bear, trying to remember something important. Something that would get him out of this. It was just at the very back of his mind, if he could just find it... _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “How do you become pure?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He knew the answer. _ **Pain** _ . It was the one practice of his fathers’ gospel that was ever shared with him, and he thought he knew better than to try to get away but he still tried. He tried to jump off the chair and make a run to his room, however he dreaded the place but when he did, Sunil grabbed his arm and yanked him back so hard, pain laced through his shoulder. Max bit down on a whimper but held still. There was nowhere to go. His father let him go and he quietly knelt down on the floor, picking up his bear. He knew the belt was coming, and there was no one to stop it. He looked at Mr. Honeynuts and tried his best to be brave-- _   
  
**Wait, when did he get his other eye back?** **  
** **  
** ** _David_ ** **. None of this is real. **   
  
Max surged upright with a gasp, feeling like he had outrun a bear all over again. Narrowly escaping unharmed. He looked around frantically, then noticed his bear on the ground beside his bed and he snatched it up and hugged it immediately. “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay,” he whispered to himself. He’s not here. He can’t get me .   
  
But no matter how he tried to convince himself he was safe, Max couldn’t rid himself of the looming sense of terror that hung over him. He could still feel his father’s hand on the back of his neck, holding him in place for the incoming punishment. Max shuddered as he got out of bed and grabbed the quilt out from under his cot. He wrapped himself up tightly in it and tiptoed out, relieved Neil wasn’t awake. That guy slept like the dead.   


He must have been asleep for a while, because the counselor cabin windows were dark. They didn’t stay up too long after the kids, but usually Gwen was up longer than David. He almost considered going back to his tent, but he really couldn’t will himself to make the walk in the dark alone a second time. So he lifted his hand and knocked timidly on the cabin door.   
  
He was about to knock a little louder but then it opened. David was standing there, wearing a t-shirt and pajama pants but he didn’t look like he had been sleeping. He seemed to be wide awake as he looked down at Max with raised eyebrows. “Hey,” he said quietly, kneeling down to his height. Max glanced around him, seeing Gwen roll over in her bunk, apparently asleep. “Max?”   
  
_ Say something, loser _ . But like it so often did nowadays, his voice was hiding.   
  
“Are you okay? Did you have a nightmare?” David asked, his brow furrowing as he started to reach out to him but on instinct, Max took a stumbling step back with a short cry of, _ “No, don’t--!” _ And David froze immediately. Max hated how he was just staring at him with that stupid worried face. He hated that now when he was scared, his first thought was to go to David. _ What the fuck is wrong with me? I’ve been brainwashed _ . “I did…” he admitted.   
  
“Hang on, give me a second.”   
  
He waited as David grabbed his shoes and put them on, before stepping outside of the cabin with the electric lantern, setting it to a dim glow. He silently followed him as they began a quiet walk around the camp. About halfway through it, Max looked up at David, who just smiled down at him affectionately. It was so shockingly different. When his father looked at him, it was with nothing but utter contempt on a good day. The rest of the time? He didn’t look at him at all.   
  
“He wishes I was never born,” Max whispered and David stopped. After a moment, he silently offered him his free hand. Max stared at it for a while, before he reached out and curled his fingers around David’s and they started walking again. “David, what’s wrong with me?” he blurted out, a question he had asked himself many times but never asked anyone else. He was desperate to just _ understand _ . To know the reason for it all, maybe if he did he could change things. “Mommy said that was the whole reason they got married, to have a _ kid _ and then they had me and decided I was fucking worthless. Why? What did I do?”   
  
David squeezed his hand reassuringly, as Max waited for him to answer. “You didn’t do anything, Max. You’re not any different from me. Did I do anything to make my dad leave?”   
  
“No. You were a baby, weren’t you?”   
  
“I was two.”   
  
“But he tried to come back.”   
  
“And your parents kept you.”   
  
That was a heartbreakingly good point, but Max got his meaning. As he thought about it, Max stumbled on the quilt edge but David held tight to his hand. “Sorry,” he muttered. “My feet still hurt.”   
  
David let go of his hand, and Max briefly got scared he was going to get annoyed with him, which was stupid. It was David. But his counselor just offered his arms out to him and after Max figured out what he was asking, he slowly raised his own arms so David could pick him up and carry him. Max put his arms around his counselor’s shoulders and watched the lake behind them, relieved to get off his feet. He really was still sore from his ‘adventure’. 

“You can’t hold yourself accountable for the cruelty of others,” David said quietly. “It isn’t your fault your parents don’t care or take out whatever is hurting them on you, Max. You’re their kid, not their burden or the cause of their unhappiness or whatever they say to justify the shit they do. You didn’t ask to be born, Max. Nobody does, and nobody deserves to be punished for it.”  
  
It was like a kick in the stomach. He had spent so long wondering how it was his fault and justifying the rest with the notion that everyone was like his parents. Selfish people who only cared about themselves. But was that the life he wanted?   
  
He wondered if that had been his father’s goal. To condition him to believe there was no other version of the world than the one he preached, so Max would never dream of anything else. But the word had as much good in it as bad, didn’t it? There were people like his parents, and then...There was David and Gwen.   
  
He buried his face against David’s shoulder, not hiding the tears. “I don’t want to go back,” he sobbed. “I want to stay with you guys. I don’t want them to hurt me again, I just want to stay…David, I’m so fucking scared I’m gonna die if I go back, please don’t let--”   
  
David hushed him gently, as he carefully adjusted to holding him with one arm so he could open the cabin door. He didn’t protest it when David laid down in his bunk, still cradling Max against his chest. He was fine with it, actually. It helped. The ominous shadow of the man who held such sway over him all his life was still there, as always, but now he felt like it couldn’t touch him. The warmth and the steady heart beat soothed him to close his eyes, finally feeling his tiredness full force. “It’s over, Max. You never have to go back to them again. I’ll make sure you’re safe, it’s _ over _ .”   
  
“What if he tries to--?”   
  
“I’ll protect you. I promised, remember?”   
  
Max was simply too drained to say anything else. After a moment, he heard David softly singing to him, no guitar, no one else to hear. A lullaby just for him. It wasn’t like any other songs he had heard his counselor play over the summer, it wasn’t even in a language Max understood. The melody was bitter sweet and calming, strange but in a good way. 

_ “ _ _ O chì, chì mi na mòr-bheanna _

_ O chì, chì mi na còrr-bheanna _

_ O chì, chì mi na coireachan _

_ Chì mi na sgoran fo cheò _

_ Chì mi gun dàil an t-àite san d'rugadh mi _

_ Cuirear orm fàilte sa chànain a thuigeas mi _

_ Gheibh mi ann aoidh agus gràdh nuair a ruigeam _

_ Nach reicinn air tunnachan òir.” _ _   
_ _   
_ “What’s that mean?” Max murmured, sleep just around the corner.   
  
“It’s Scots Gaelic. It’s a song my mom sang. It’s kind of about going home.”   
  
“How does the rest go?”   
  
“Beanntaichean àrda is àillidh leacainnean

_ Sluagh ann an còmhnuidh is còire cleachdainnean _

_ 'S aotrom mo cheum a' leum g'am faicinn _

_ Is fanaidh mi tacan le deòin…” _ _   
_ _   
_   
Max nodded off while David was still singing. He didn't worry about how he was going to get prodded and interrogated by some random ass social worker, about how he had no idea where he was going to live in the foreseeable future or about how his friends were starting to view his constant absences and more. All Max knew was that for the first time in his life, he felt _truly_ safe and slept soundly for it.


End file.
